Social Institutions: Family, Marriage, Kinship, Religion, Education, Economy and Polity
This domain tests your grasp of institutions as organised patterns of norms, not merely buildings or organisations. You should be able to state functions, types and changes.
Family, marriage and kinship
Family is a universal institution based on kinship, with functions of reproduction, socialisation, economic cooperation and emotional support. Nuclear and joint families differ in residence, authority and property arrangements. Marriage is a socially approved relationship that regulates sexual access, legitimises children and creates affinal ties; forms include monogamy and polygamy, endogamy and exogamy, with bride price or dowry. Kinship covers consanguineal (blood) and affinal (marriage) ties, descent and terminology.
Religion, education, economy, polity
Durkheim treated religion as a system of beliefs and practices uniting a community around the sacred/profane distinction; Weber linked religious ethics to economic conduct. Education performs manifest functions (skills, credentials) and latent functions (socialisation, sorting). Economy organises production, distribution and consumption; polity organises power, authority and legitimate rule.
Worked example
Why has dowry persisted despite legal prohibition? An institutional analysis notes marriage as an alliance, inheritance and status marker; families use dowry to secure matches in a hypergamous marriage market. Law alone changes little when economic and kinship incentives remain.
Traps
Do not confuse family with household: a household is a co-residential unit; family is a kinship unit. Do not reduce religion to belief: it is also practice, community and institution. Do not treat institutions as unchanging; they adapt. Do not assume legal change automatically produces social change.